A dynamic pop trio, Parachute Express was the first children's group to get real exposure through a non-broadcast medium. The group's original songs and upbeat tempos set the stage for the Gymboree preschool classes, and made Donny Becker, Janice Hubbard, and Stephen Michael Schwartz very well-known long before they began marketing their songs.
Donny Becker graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz and became a co-director of a Montessori school there. He and his wife, Adrian, became owners of a Gymboree franchise and began building that business. But Becker ...